At once the soldiers of the regular army commenced looting. The Palace was stripped; then the bazaars and the wealthier people suffered, and soon there was a pandemonium of riot, robbery, and murder. This having occurred once, the fear is lest it may occur again. Many of the well-to-do natives of Afghanistan have that dread; and at the time when the present Amîr was severely ill, in 1890, there was such trepidation and anxiety in Kabul, that many of the well-to-do concealed their more portable valuables by burying them in the earth, and sought for safer retreats outside the town, to which they could hurry in time of need. [Sidenote: The House.] The house did not differ from those of the richer Kabulis. The windowless twenty-feet-high walls, in addition to ensuring privacy, enabled the occupant on closure of the massive doors to convert his house into a place of defence. It was partly overlooked, however, by one tower or observatory built on the top of a high house some little distance off. It was here, I was informed, that Sirdar Ishak lived. He could, therefore, catch a glimpse of the ladies of his harem when they were walking on the roof. The large square garden was filled with fruit-trees and flowers: roses, wallflowers, sweet-williams; and in the centre was a movable wooden platform. In nearly every garden in Afghanistan you find, in some shady place, generally by the side of the stream that ripples through the garden, a platform a foot or two high, either of wood or carefully smoothed earth. Here the Afghan, in his loose native garb, loves to spread his carpet and sit in the hot summer afternoons lulled by the murmur of the water, lazily talk to his friends and drink unlimited tea. I have done it myself. On the north side were my rooms raised six steps above the garden. Passing up the steps to the lobby one entered the outer room with its seven arched windows overlooking the garden, its one huge carpet covering the floor, and, passing through, reached the inner room, parallel and of the same size. There were the white sparkling walls ornamented with frieze and dado, the arched niches or takchahs, with small mirrors between them, the fireplace with ornamental mouldings, the draped ceiling and the smooth earth floor with beautiful rugs that are usual in the homes of the wealthiest Afghans. The inner room was lit from the outer by a triple arched window, filled with stained glass, which reached nearly to the floor. It was in this room that Shere Ali died. It is said that on the takchah over the fireplace there was left in the hurry when Ishak fled, the sum of R80,000 in gold. At any rate, while I was there, one of the Court officials was fined heavily by the Amîr for appropriating the money.